Mobile Social Software, also known as MoSoSo, is an emerging paradigm of social computing that appeared around 2004, in parallel with the diffusion of smartphone technology. However, the early applications of MoSoSo were SMS-based. Since then, there has been some research and commercial development of MoSoSo: at an academic level, the peak of MoSoSo popularity was achieved in 2006, when a special workshop on MoSoSo was organized at the annual CHI conference. From a commercial viewpoint, Nokia introduced Nokia Sensor and Google acquired Dogdeball. Unfortunately, both academic and commercial expectations were not met, thus leaving MoSoSo as an unrealized potential. Recently, this trend has been reversed by the success of mobile apps and the popularity of social networking, which led to the rapid growth of the latest generation of MoSoSo including, among others, Foursquare and Gowalla. This lecture on MoSoSo will trace the historical origins and developments of MoSoSo, present the current state of the art and evaluate its possible impacts on future societies.

1. MOBILE SOCIAL SOFTWARE
timeline
Historical
roots
State of
the art
Future
prospects
Giuseppe Lugano
giuseppe.lugano@nokia.com
Aalto University, 25.11.2010
1

2. Something about me...
1. Camerino 2. Bologna 3. Helsinki 3. Jyväskylä
2000
Erasmus
exchange in
Helsinki
2002
Master’s thesis
on educational
technology
2003
MSc Computer
Science, Univ. of
Bologna
Visiting
researcher
at HIIT
2004-08 2005-2010 2010
Researcher at
TeliaSonera
PhD Cognitive
Science, Univ. of
Jyväskylä
Intern at Nokia
Research Center
Helsinki

3. From Educational Technology to
Mobile Social Software (MoSoSo)
My Research path
2003 2007 2010
Educational
technology
Mobile
communication
Digital communities
and MoSoSo

4. PART I
HISTORICAL ROOTS
4

5. Evolution of mobile
communication
From communication tool to ”Digital Swiss-Knife”
5
Historical
roots
2005 -2.5G 2010 - 3G
1982 – 1G 1996 – 2G

6. Mobile2.0Mobile2.0
Mobile1.0Mobile1.0
Timeline
2G
1991 - 2001
2G
1991 - 2001
2005 –
3G and beyond
2005 –
3G and beyond
1G: Cellular network, call hand-off, non-digital
standards, early mobile phones, voice services
0G: Mobile radio telephony, walkie-talkies,
landline telephony (wired, cordless), pagers
1G: Cellular network, call hand-off, non-digital
standards, early mobile phones, voice services
0G: Mobile radio telephony, walkie-talkies,
landline telephony (wired, cordless), pagers
2G: Digital standard (GSM), Roaming, SIM,
devices add features, data services (SMS, WAP)
2G: Digital standard (GSM), Roaming, SIM,
devices add features, data services (SMS, WAP)
3G: Digital convergence, broadband mobile
connectivity, Smartphones, GPS, touch
interfaces, mobile Internet, video-calls, mobile tv,
Mobile Social Software (MoSoSo)
3G: Digital convergence, broadband mobile
connectivity, Smartphones, GPS, touch
interfaces, mobile Internet, video-calls, mobile tv,
Mobile Social Software (MoSoSo)
0G & 1G
1960 - 1991
0G & 1G
1960 - 1991
Mobile social networking,
Large-scale mobilizations
(e.g. smartmobs, flashmobs)
Digital communities
2.5G: Camera integration, Bluetooth, MMS, Color
screens, larger memories
2.5G: Camera integration, Bluetooth, MMS, Color
screens, larger memories
Tecnological Innovations
2.5G
2001 – 2005
2.5G
2001 – 2005
Interpersonal
communication
& small group
coordination
Evolution of mobile communication
6
Historical
roots
Social scope

7. Mobile2.0 is about convergence
Mobile
Services 2G 2.5G 3G Web 1.5Web 2.0 Web 1.0
Phone
call
SMS
MMS
MoSoSoMoSoSo
Email
Mailing-lists
Newsgroups
Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
Internet Forum
Instant Messaging (IM)
Blogs Wikis
Online social networks
Video
calls
WAP
Social
Software
’60s –’80s ’90s 2000 - ’60s –’80s’90s2005 -NOWNOW
MoSoSo is the outcome of the technological convergence between mobile
services and social software, which implies social convergence as well
1G
Historical
roots
Mobile2.0

8. Before the turn of Millennium: CMC, Groupware, CSCW & CSCL
• There are several ancestors of MoSoSo
– Computer-Mediated-Communication(CMC): computers regarded since ‘70s
not only as information processing tools, but also as communication devices
– Groupware: digital technologies used for supporting collaborative social
interactions in formal activity contexts like schools, educational institutes,
institutions and organizations
• Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL): collaborative environments
for learning communities
• Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): knowledge sharing,
cooperative processes in organizations
• Solid academic tradition of CMC and Groupware
• Boundaries and differentiating factors between Groupware,
social software and MoSoSo has never been clearly established
8
Historical
roots

9. 2002-2003: Smartmobs & Social Software
• Howard Rheingold, who also coined the term virtual
community, publishes an influential book titled
Smartmobs – the next social revolution
• Instead of MoSoSo, Rheingold coins the term smart
mob technology, an amplifier for human cooperation
but also a potential always-on panopticon
• The author provides several examples of ways in
which MoSoSo would impact societal changes (e.g.
mass mobilization via SMS against President Estrada
in the Philippines)
• Clay Shirky coins the term social software in his blog
9
Historical
roots

10. 2004: term MoSoSo is coined
• First papers on MoSoSo by Dan Melinger, CEO of Socialight
“Mobile social software is social software designed for use while mobile. This
includes software that augments human social or collaborative abilities by
supporting group communication […] MoSoSo represents more than merely a
grafting of social software onto mobile devices. When running these types of
applications on a mobile platform, the usage models for the applications take on
quite different characteristics from their non-mobile counterparts”
• Melinger’s papers are not considered very significant. They are
seldom quoted in MoSoSo literature.
– His contribution demonstrates that the origins of MoSoSo are closer to
business than academic contexts
• Timo Arnall creates a well-known list of MoSoSo on his blog
10
Historical
roots

11. 2005: MoSoSo gains popularity
• Several academic projects and articles on MoSoSo
– Reality Mining project at MIT Media Lab: Nathan Eagle publishes “Social serendipity:
mobilizing social software”, the most quoted paper on MoSoSo
– Within the Context project at the University of Helsinki/HIIT, Antti Oulasvirta, Mika
Raento and colleagues analyze the social implications of ContextContacts, a MoSoSo
enhancing social awareness through the disclosure of contextual cues
– Papers from Churchill and Smith review the state of the art of MoSoSo, connecting it
to social network analysis / social networking sites
– Digidress/Nokia Sensor, a MoSoSo for identity expression and social proximity
interaction from Jan Blom, Younghee Jung and Per Persson
11
Historical
roots
ContextContacts Digidress/Nokia Sensor

12. 2005: MoSoSo gains popularity
• Increasing coverage on specialized media
– Wired publishes a column on MoSoSo titled “MoSoSo not So-So” defining MoSoSo as
“the mobile equivalents of online social networks like Friendster and LinkedIn. They
help users find old friends, or potential new ones, on the go”
– Related trends: Tim O’Reilly popularizes the notion of Web2.0, and the term social
media gets increasingly popular
• MoSoSo startups launched
– Dennis Crowley, founder and CEO of Dodgeball, presents Dodgeball, a MoSoSo that
“encourages users to opt-in with their location via text messaging in order to
broadcast their whereabouts to their friends, look for nearby friends-of-friends or
hook up with nearby crushes”
• In the same year, Dodgeball was acquired by Google, which integrated Dodgeball
technology in its Google Latitude service in 2009
• Crowley left Google in 2007 to create Foursquare, a service launched in 2009, which shares
many similarities with Dodgeball
– Other startups: Playtxt, Jambo Networks, Plazes (acquired by Nokia in 2008)
12
Historical
roots

13. 2006: peak of popularity for MoSoSo
• Scott Counts (Microsoft), Henri ter
Hofte (Telematica Instituut) and Ian
Smith (Intel) organize the workshop
“Mobile Social Software: realizing
potential, managing risks” at CHI, the
most important conference on Human-
Computer Interaction
• My first paper on MoSoSo: “Designing
people’s interconnections in mobile
social networks”, which is based on a
technical report done in 2004 at the
Corporate R&D of TeliaSonera Finland
13
Historical
roots

14. 2007: end of the MoSoSo hype phase
• Web2.0 and social media rapidly replace MoSoSo as emerging trends
– MoSoSo is soon archived as an “unfinished” revolution
• At an academic level, several interesting papers are published
– The first critical analysis of MoSoSo is published by Thom-Santelli, who underlines the
current limitations of MoSoSo, defined as an entertainment gadget with little utility
– Kolko explores the potential of MoSoSo for the developing world, overcoming the
common idea that MoSoSo is suitable only for densely populated developed cities
– Lugano provides the first systematic definition of MoSoSo and connects its most
promising applications to social capital theory. In another paper, he suggests an
approach to MoSoSo privacy challenges
• My definition from 2007 (also reported in Wikipedia page on MoSoSo):
“MoSoSo is a class of mobile applications whose scope is to support social
interaction among interconnected individuals”
14
Historical
roots

15. 2008: early signs of MoSoSo maturity
• Development of MoSoSo as an interdisciplinary research area continues
– Heyer publishes the first thesis on the topic: “MoSoSo: the design, implementation
and usage of a system for mobile group communication, coordination and sharing”
– Humphreys publishes in the Journal of CMC a widely quoted case study on Dodgeball
– Lugano explains how the network approach allows moving from the theory to the
practice of MoSoSo design
• At a commercial level, the term MoSoSo is not used much, but social
networking services are increasingly accessed on mobile devices
– A study from ABI Research predicts that online social networking going mobile would
be one of the strongest growth trends, leading to 140 million users by 2013
15
Historical
roots

16. 2009 & 2010: MoSoSo as part of Mobile2.0
• The popularity of smartphones and the powerful
trend of mobile apps open the era of the Mobile2.0
– Wired declares that the Web is dead because it is evolving
towards from an open-ended platform to more close and
proprietary interconnected ecosystems, increasingly accessed
through specialized mobile apps
• MoSoSo is connected to the wider trend of digital
convergence, which encompasses technological,
economic, cultural and social meanings
– In his PhD thesis “Digital community design”, Lugano presents
a conceptualization and holistic design model of MoSoSo,
arguing that its role is to enable and to empower self-
organizing digital communities
16
Historical
roots

17. Summary of MoSoSo
• Still a young technology
• Significant both
academically and
commercially
• Multiple contributions
and overlapping trends
17
Historical
roots
CSCL
Virtual/Online
communities
Groupware
Web2.0
Social
media
Online social
networks
Mobile2.0
Context-Aware
Computing
Social
software
Social
computing
CSCW
MoSoSo
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
“hype phase”
interest
fades off
maturity?

18. PART II
STATE OF THE ART
18

19. What is MoSoSo today?
• There are three main types of MoSoSo
19
State of
the art

20. What is MoSoSo for…?
• Friend-finders (e.g. Dodgeball, Nokia Sensor)
• Mobile dating applications (e.g. Lovegety, MeetMoi)
• Pervasive urban gaming (e.g. Human Pacman)
Typical users: teenagers / young adults living in cities and with active social lives
Typical usage contexts: bars, clubs, streets, large-scale events (e.g. concerts)
Social proximity applications let users “scan” the social environment through sensors
State of
the art

21. What is MoSoSo for…?
• Mobile access to online social networks (e.g. Facebook)
• Social aggregators: access to multiple social networks at once (eg. Funnelry)
• Mobile media sharing: single update to multiple social media sites (eg. Shozu)
• Presence-enhanced mobile phone-book (e.g. ContextContacts)
Social awareness applications let users share their “life feeds” with social networks
Historical
roots

22. Foursquare
• Foursquare is a MoSoSo created in 2009
by Dennis Crowley, who also invented
Dodgeball
• Foursquare can be used anywhere in the
world and has currently 4 million
registered users
• Users voluntarily disclose their locations
by “checking-in” at venues
– Users frequently checking-in at a venue can
become “mayors” and earn “badges” (social
status incentives) and get discounts or offers
from business partners (economic incentive)
– Users can have their check-ins posted in
Facebook and/or Twitter 22
State of
the art
MoSoSo of the year?
• Webby Award 2010 as best
mobile social network
• App of the Year 2010 in the T3
Gadget Awards
• 2011 Technology Pioneer
nomination by the World Economic
Forum in ICT category
MoSoSo of the year?
• Webby Award 2010 as best
mobile social network
• App of the Year 2010 in the T3
Gadget Awards
• 2011 Technology Pioneer
nomination by the World Economic
Forum in ICT category

23. Foursquare
• Similarly to Facebook, Foursquare raises significant concerns for
personal privacy and security
– There have been cases of stalking through Foursquare
– Wired reported how hacker captured 875k check-ins by exploiting privacy hole
• The game-like mechanisms of Foursquare are exploited to
overcome users’ traditional resistance towards location-sharing
– By removing this barrier and combining it with special discounts, Foursquare
manages to unlock the commercial potential of the application by turning
users into marketers (e.g. invite other friends to check-in to get points needed
to have a personal discount)
23
State of
the art

24. Gowalla
• Gowalla lets users check-in to collect
“passports”, a collection of stamps of
the places they visit.
– Pins, personal achievements in e.g. trips,
are attached to passports
– Users can attach photos, comments to
passports and connect places to people
– Like in Foursquare, virtual items offering
rewards and special offers can be
discovered while “exploring” the world
24
State of
the art

25. Facebook Places
• Facebook Places is the new feature of Facebook that connects
location-sharing to local deals via friends
– Based on Foursquare concept of “checking-in”
– Through the “Deals” feature, Facebook connects its business strategy to
the transactions mediated by Facebook with commercial partners
25
State of
the art

26. Summary
• Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places represent
the current state of the art of MoSoSo
– The basic idea of these MoSoSo is the same: engage users in
location-sharing by offering a mobile social game, while enjoying
revenues from commercial partners
– Mechanisms to protect users’ privacy and security exist, but recent
cases demonstrate that they are far from optimal
– As expected, the potential of MoSoSo is used for attaining the goal
of economic growth, while societal development remains a
secondary objective
• Can we do better? What may be the future paths of
MoSoSo development?
26
State of
the art

27. PART III
FUTURE PROSPECTS
27

28. Designing MoSoSo for Sustainable Futures
“How do you navigate an unsteady economy, a future without
cheap oil, and unimaginable changes in the climate?”
(YesMagazine 55, 2010)
28
We need to become skilled equilibrists to
maintain/restore balance in our lives despite sudden
disruptions, shocks or systemic changes
Gowalla, Foursquare and Facebook Places do not help us
in achieving this objective because the are conceived for
a stable society enjoying continuous economic growth
Future
prospects

29. MoSoSo as critical element of the “balancing pole”
The real potential of Mobile Social Software (MoSoSo) consists in the
creative use of information and/or resources embedded in one’s social
network to address contextual needs
Unfortunately, the current conceptualization and design of
MoSoSo does not fully exploit this potential
Future
prospects

30. MoSoSo for Sustainability Innovations
• MoSoSo needs to evolve from stand-alone entertainment gadget to
a general-purpose platform enabling and empowering self-
organizing digital communities
• Community has always been about sharing
30
• Traditionally: shared territory and/or feelings of
solidarity
• Currently: “content-based” communities digitally
sharing tangible/intangible resources
• MoSoSo is not only about finding a nearby friend, sharing photos
of a birthday party or getting access to special discounts or offers
– it is especially a powerful tool for using bits to share atoms
Future
prospects

31. Emerging trend: “using bits to share atoms”
• Early phase of Web2.0 has been about (co-)creation, sharing and
use of user-generated content (UGC) mostly for information and
entertainment purposes
• The current trend is about co-creation, provision and
consumption of community-generated services (CGS) satisfying
basic needs in a cost-efficient, transparent and environmental-
friendly manner
31
Future
prospects

32. “Using bits to share atoms”: a recent case
• In April 2010, the Icelandic ash cloud caused severe
disruptions to airplane traffic
• Alternatives for completing a journey (trains, buses,
car rentals) became hard to obtain and expensive
because of speculations
• Instead of fighting for gaining exclusive access to
scarce resources, passengers self-organized in small
groups
• Through mobile access to Facebook, passengers
managed to quickly and cheaply “design” a digital
community and implement an efficient ad-hoc car-
sharing service 32
Future
prospects

33. Other grassroots initiatives
• Sharing homes
– HomeExchange.com: “make yourself at home…anywhere in the world”
– Couchsurfing.com: 2,2M members couchsurfing in 78k cities
• Sharing vehicles/rides
– Zimride.com: Community-powered sustainable transportation
– Greenriders.com: Finnish trust-based ride sharing solution
• Sharing objects/tools
– Zilok.com: location-based peer-to-peer renting
– Swap.com: “swapping saves your money and saves the planet”
• Sharing knowledge
– Skillshare: local meet-ups where people share their personal expertise
– Carrotmob.org: consumer activism supporting socially responsible
companies
– Nokia Green Explorer: share tips and advices on greener cities and lifestyles
33
Future
prospects

34. The future: next-generation MoSoSo
• Until now, MoSoSo mostly designed for entertainment and socialization,
and with specific use cases/social groups in mind (e.g. Nokia Sensor)
• To “unlock human potential”, next-generation MoSoSo should follow the
path of the WWW, a general-purpose social platform in which “anything
can be linked to anything” (Berners-Lee, 1999 p.4)
34
MoSoSo as “magic box”
• Economic profits still possible, but should be
realized as a “side-effects” of wider strategies for
societal development
• Principle for next-generation MoSoSo: designing
MoSoSo for enabling and empowering a self-
organizing network-based civil society
Future
prospects

35. MoSoSo and the future: towards a
network-based civil society
• The informal and evolving network of self-organizing digital
communities form a network-based civil society
• Citizens participating to the network-based civil society are a
precious resource for realizing more sustainable societies
Future
prospects

36. Sustainability: MoSoSo helps building resilience
• From resilient
materials and
products….
• …to resilient lives, ecosystems, organizations and societies
Future
prospects

37. Conclusions
• We are living in a historical period
of profound transformation
• Role of MoSoSo: contribute to the
goal of sustainable living by
promoting grassroots social change
and building resilience in people’s
lives, businesses and societies
• Existing MoSoSo not suitable for
addressing current and future
challenges
Climate changeGlobal ageing
Resouce depletionEconomic crisis
Future
prospects

38. THANK YOU!
KIITOS!
38
For more INFO ABOUT MOSOSO
SEND ME AN EMAIL (giuseppe.lugano@nokia.com)
OR CHECK http://digitalcommunity.cosix.it